Majority of Undergrads and Grad Students Are Women,Census Bureau Reports

Women made up 56 percent (about 8 million) of the undergraduate student population and 59 percent (about 2 million) of the graduate students in 2005, according to the latest data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau on school enrollment in the United States.

The package of 15 tables from the Current Population Survey (CPS) shows characteristics of the population age 3 and older enrolled in classes — from nursery school through graduate studies — as well as those in vocational training.

Other highlights:

* About half (49 percent) of 18- and 19-year-olds were enrolled in college in 2005. * The majority of undergraduate students were enrolled in four-year colleges 69 percent). Of those enrolled in four-year colleges, 81 percent attended full time. * Half of all graduate students (52 percent) were enrolled part time. * More than half of all students enrolled in vocational courses worked full time (60 percent) and of those students, more than half (56 percent) were men. * Of all students in vocational courses, the largest group was 45- to 64-year-olds at 29 percent, followed by 25- to 34-year-olds at 24 percent. * Six-in-10 4-year-olds were enrolled in preschool.

When mountain lion attacks, spouse fights backWife clubs big cat with log after husband is attacked in California state park

SAN FRANCISCO - Wildlife officials credited a woman with saving her husband's life by clubbing a mountain lion that attacked him while the couple were hiking in a California state park.

Jim and Nell Hamm, who will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary next month, were hiking in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park when the lion pounced, officials said Thursday.

"He didn't scream. It was a different, horrible plea for help, and I turned around, and by then the cat had wrestled Jim to the ground," Nell Hamm said in an interview from the hospital where her husband was recovering from a torn scalp, puncture wounds and other injuries.Story continues below ↓ advertisement

After the attack, game wardens closed the park about 320 miles north of San Francisco and released hounds to track the lion. They later shot and killed a pair of lions found near the trail where the attack happened.

The carcasses were flown to a state forensics lab to determine if either animal mauled the man.

Although the Hamms are experienced hikers, neither had seen a mountain lion before Jim Hamm was mauled, his wife said. Nell Hamm said she grabbed a four-inch-wide log and beat the animal with it, but it would not release its hold on her husband's head.

"Jim was talking to me all through this, and he said, 'I've got a pen in my pocket and get the pen and jab him in the eye,'" she said. "So I got the pen and tried to put it in his eye, but it didn't want to go in as easy as I thought it would."

When the pen bent and became useless, Nell Hamm went back to using the log. The lion eventually let go and, with blood on its snout, stood staring at the woman. She screamed and waved the log until the animal walked away.

‘She saved his life, there is no doubt’"She saved his life, there is no doubt about it," said Steve Martarano, a spokesman for the Department of Fish and Game.

Nell Hamm, 65, said she was scared to leave her dazed, bleeding husband alone, so the couple walked a quarter-mile to a trail head, where she gathered branches to protect them if more lions came around. They waited until a ranger came by and summoned help.

"My concern was to get Jim out of there," she said. "I told him, 'Get up, get up, walk,' and he did."

Jim Hamm, 70, was in fair condition Thursday. He had to have his lips stitched back together and underwent surgery for lacerations on his head and body.

Nell Hamm warned people never to hike in the backcountry alone. Park rangers told the couple if Jim Hamm had been alone, he probably would not have survived.

"We fought harder than we ever have to save his life, and we fought together," she said.

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- Harvard University could be about to name its first female president, as the governing board charged with vetting candidates has narrowed its search to a single one, historian Drew Gilpin Faust, according to published reports.

The Harvard Corporation was expected to recommend Faust to the school's Board of Overseers, an alumni group that has final say, at a meeting on Sunday, multiple sources told The Boston Globe and The Harvard Crimson in Friday's editions.

Faust, an expert on the Civil War and the American South, has been dean of Harvard's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study since 2001 and also teaches in the history department. She has never run a major institution and did not attend Harvard, which the university usually prefers.

Faust would succeed Lawrence Summers, a former Treasury Secretary under President Clinton, who resigned in June after a five-year tenure marked by conflicts with faculty. Summers' comments two years ago that genetic differences between the genders may explain the dearth of women in top science jobs drew sharp criticism and sparked calls from some alumni for the school to name a female president.

In January, another top candidate, Thomas R. Cech, the head of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a Nobel prize winner, asked the search committee to remove him from consideration.

In the wake of Summers' comments about women scientists, Faust oversaw the creation of two faculty task forces that examined gender diversity at the Cambridge campus.

Faust has a bachelor's degree from Bryn Mawr College and received her doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania, where she taught for many years.

Computing award goes to female for first timeAP) -- One of the most prestigious prizes in computing, the $100,000 Turing Award, went to a woman Wednesday for the first time in the award's 40-year history.

Frances E. Allen, 74, was honored for her work at IBM Corp. on techniques for optimizing the performance of compilers, the programs that translate one computer language into another.

This process is required to turn programming code into the binary zeros and ones actually read by a computer's colossal array of minuscule switches.

Allen joined IBM in 1957 after completing a master's degree in mathematics at the University of Michigan. At the time, IBM recruited women by circulating a brochure on campuses that was titled "My Fair Ladies."

When Allen joined Big Blue, an IBM team led by John Backus had just completed Fortran, one of the first high-level programming languages.

The point of Fortran was to develop a system that could operate a computer just as efficiently as previous "hand-coded" approaches directly assembled by programmers. Allen recalled Wednesday that her task at IBM was to replicate the achievement on multiple kinds of computers.

"I had the good fortune to work on one big project on good machines after another," she said.

Her work led her into varied assignments, including writing intelligence analysis software for the National Security Agency. More recently she helped design software for IBM's Blue Gene supercomputer.

She retired in 2002 but has stayed active in programs that encourage girls and women to study computer science.

"It's a very tough problem overall," she said. "Constant attention to it is important."

Since the Turing Award was first given in 1966 by the Association for Computing Machinery, previous winners have included luminaries in encryption, artificial intelligence, hypertext, networking and other vital elements of modern computing. All were men, including Backus, the 1977 winner.

Allen called it "high time for a woman," though she quickly added: "That's not why I got it."

Computing award goes to female for first timeAP) -- One of the most prestigious prizes in computing, the $100,000 Turing Award, went to a woman Wednesday for the first time in the award's 40-year history.

Frances E. Allen, 74, was honored for her work at IBM Corp. on techniques for optimizing the performance of compilers, the programs that translate one computer language into another.

This process is required to turn programming code into the binary zeros and ones actually read by a computer's colossal array of minuscule switches.

Allen joined IBM in 1957 after completing a master's degree in mathematics at the University of Michigan. At the time, IBM recruited women by circulating a brochure on campuses that was titled "My Fair Ladies."

When Allen joined Big Blue, an IBM team led by John Backus had just completed Fortran, one of the first high-level programming languages.

The point of Fortran was to develop a system that could operate a computer just as efficiently as previous "hand-coded" approaches directly assembled by programmers. Allen recalled Wednesday that her task at IBM was to replicate the achievement on multiple kinds of computers.

"I had the good fortune to work on one big project on good machines after another," she said.

Her work led her into varied assignments, including writing intelligence analysis software for the National Security Agency. More recently she helped design software for IBM's Blue Gene supercomputer.

She retired in 2002 but has stayed active in programs that encourage girls and women to study computer science.

"It's a very tough problem overall," she said. "Constant attention to it is important."

Since the Turing Award was first given in 1966 by the Association for Computing Machinery, previous winners have included luminaries in encryption, artificial intelligence, hypertext, networking and other vital elements of modern computing. All were men, including Backus, the 1977 winner.

Allen called it "high time for a woman," though she quickly added: "That's not why I got it."

hmmmm, not sure if i approve of the nerdification of women...

I just read about her in Glamour this week. It was an article about women in science. Yay women's magazines!

INDIANAPOLIS · The nation's largest health insurer, WellPoint Inc., surprised some analysts with its choice for a new CEO: a lesser-known executive who will become the highest-ranking woman in the Fortune 500.

Angela F. Braly, a lawyer with deal-making experience and public-policy savvy, was tapped to take over when Larry Glasscock retires June 1. Glasscock, 58, announced his retirement Monday, citing family reasons the company would not elaborate on. He will remain non-executive chairman.

WellPoint ranked 38th in the 2006 Fortune 500 list of the largest U.S. companies. The next highest company with a female leader is No. 56 Archer Daniels Midland Co., headed by Patricia A. Woertz.

Braly, currently a WellPoint executive vice president, said she might bring "great perspective" to the new role because of her gender. She noted that women make up 77 percent of WellPoint's 42,000 employees and more than half of its management ranks.

WellPoint shares fell 37 cents to close at $81.13 in Monday trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

The company's choice came as a "major shock" to CIBC World Markets analyst Carl McDonald. "We want to emphasize that our issue is not with Braly herself, as she very well could be the perfect person for the role," McDonald wrote. "We just don't know her, and neither does the market."

There are currently 10 female CEOs leading Fortune 500 companies, a list that includes RadioShack Corp., Avon Products Inc. and Xerox Corp.

Braly, 45, joined the company in 2005. Before that, she was president and CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Missouri.